No one ever tried to make it big as a Rich Little impersonator. That’s because there’s no point in imitating an imitator - what would you do, pretend to be someone who pretends to be Richard Nixon?

With that in mind, I thought Scary Movie brought us a redundant affair. After a mystery man murders high school student Drew (Carmen Electra), Cindy (Anna Faris) and her friends deal with an increasing body count as they try to find the killer.

Scary Movie parodies a number of then-recent horror films but it mainly focuses upon Scream. In fact, although we get clear references to other pictures like The Matrix and I Know What You Did Last Summer appear, Scary really offers little more than an extended gag based on the original Scream. Scary directly lifts some scenes right from that 1996 effort, with just small twists to attempt comedy.

The problem with this stems from the fact that Scream itself was not a straightforward horror film, one that became distinct due to the manner in which it mocked the genre’s conventions. Scream worked well enough as a thriller to keep it from being a true parody, but it walked a fine line, and its hip, self-mocking tone made it unique.

Until eight million imitators came along, of course. Those copy-cats made the prospect of a Scream parody even less sensible, but that didn’t stop the Wayans brothers - represented here by Keenan Ivory as director and brothers Shawn and Marlon as writers/actors - from this attempt.

Up front, I suppose I must acknowledge that I don’t much care for parodies. In a way, this seems ironic since SCTV remains one of my three all-time favorite TV shows.

However, though that program made parody a core of its content, it worked mainly due to the splendid characterizations from the cast. The material itself wasn’t always that great, but the execution was spectacular.

That’s why I haven’t liked many other parodies. From the songs of Weird Al to movies like Airplane! and The Kentucky Fried Movie, I usually find these take-offs to provide lazy and ineffectual comedy.

However, those works seem like genius compared to the dreck passed off as humor during Scary Movie. The fact this stinker made almost $157 million at the US box office really scares me - I guess there is a sucker born every minute.

As I already mentioned, Scary replicates the plot to Scream fairly faithfully. It goes off on a few tangents at times, but it always comes back to the well.

Since Scream itself bordered on parody, I don’t know how effective this could have been under the best of circumstances. However, the work seen here never remotely approaches “the best of circumstances”, so Scary provides nothing more than a tasteless, crude and unfunny mess.

The film uses the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” approach to comedy, but despite the rapid-fire pacing of the gags, I never threatened to crack a smile, much less actually laugh. I find it amazing that Scary credits six writers - how could so many contribute so much and result in so little entertainment?

The gags fluctuate between the excessively obvious and the disgustingly lewd. In the former category are “wacky” bits like the names of some characters.

Our protagonist is Cindy Campbell: “Cindy” sounds like “Sidney” - the lead in Scream - while “Campbell” takes from the Neve Campbell, the actress who played Sidney. Instead of reporter Gale Weathers, we get reporter Gail Hailstorm. Instead of Deputy Dewey, we get Deputy Doofy. Are your sides splitting yet?

Scary also gets a lot of jollies through some tired sources, mainly anti-gay gags. Homosexual-related material pops up with ridiculous frequency during the movie, and none of it is anything less than lame and offensive.

Add to that mockery of overweight people and the intellectually disabled and you have a film that displays consistently poor taste. Scary also provides a lot of black-related humor, but I guess that’s supposed to be okay since so many of the filmmakers are African-American.

Is there anything good about Scary? Well, Shannon Elizabeth looks consistently hot, and Carmen Electra also appears sexy during her underwear romp.

Other than that, I can’t conjure a single positive aspect of Scary Movie. The film feels like it lasts much longer than its stated 88 minutes.

In fact, it seems interminable as one tacky, unfunny gag follows another until I hoped a masked maniac would slaughter me. Scary Movie stands as one of the least entertaining movies I’ve ever seen.

If you stick around through the conclusion of the end credits, you’ll get an extra “comedy” scene.

Note that the version of Scary Movie on the disc alters the theatrical version slightly. In the edition shown on movie screens, a line uttered as two characters watched Shakespeare In Love went “Brad Pitt's ex-girlfriend is a real freak. She dressed up like a man”.

This gets changed to "she's about to get it on with Shake-a-spear - he found out she's a girl." Why? Allegedly because of objections from Scary executive producer/Shakespeare producer Harvey Weinstein.

Did Gwynnie complain to him, or was this just excessive sensitivity? I have no idea, but it’s one of the odder alterations I can recall, especially since so many folks already saw the movie with the original line intact.

Scary Movie appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. A transfer from Blu-ray’s early days, this transfer came with a mix of problems.

Digital processing became the biggest issue, as I saw a variety of issues in that vein. The image suffered from an awful lot of digital noise reduction, a factor that erased fine detail. Faces tended to seem almost plastic at times, as the movie came with an artificial, smoothed-out look that never looked natural or film-like.

Scary Movie also came burdened by prominent edge haloes, and those impacted definition. The film appeared to go through a lot of artificial “sweetening”, and those haloes meant sharpness that never felt realistic. The image had a “hyper-sharp” feel that seemed fake and unnatural.

While the movie offered a bright, peppy palette, it seemed like it came with super-boosted contrast. This meant eyes looked weird, as the whites stood out in a bizarre manner. Otherwise, colors were a strength, and blacks looked pretty dark even with the amped-up contrast.

Shadows were fine, but source flaws were a minor distraction. Small specks cropped up sporadically through the film – they never dominated, but they appeared on a pretty consistent basis. In the end, this transfer came with many problems due to a lot of artificial tampering.

At least the film’s Uncompressed PCM 5.1 soundtrack seemed generally positive. The soundfield stayed mainly in the front channels, where music and effects spread nicely across the forward speakers and meshed together neatly. I found the mix to appear fairly seamless and smooth.

The surrounds contributed general reinforcement, most of which featured the film’s music. Some effects and even a little dialogue stemmed from the rears as well, but mainly these channels focused on the score. This worked fine for the story and gave us a decent sense of place.

Audio quality appeared fine. Dialogue appeared slightly edgy at times but usually was crisp and distinct with no issues related to intelligibility. Effects were clean and realistic and came across accurately without any distortion.

The music sounded bright and dynamic and often displayed strong bass, as the low end seemed nicely deep and rich. As a whole, the soundtrack appeared appropriate for the film.

How did the Blu-ray compare to the original DVD from 2000? Audio showed a bit more warmth and range, but visuals were more complicated. While the Blu-ray came with a bit more clarity than the DVD, its many problems made it impossible to recommend.

Some of the DVD’s extras repeat here, and we find six Additional Scenes. We get “Hop-A-Long Shorty” (1:56), “Ray Calls a Play” (0:20), “Bobby’s Lesson” (1:17), “Gail Sets a Surveillance Camera” (2:05), “Shorty Watches Girl on Surveillance Camera” (1:30) and “Cindy’s Last Stand” (0:23). These offer more attempts at gags, and none of them prove to be funny.

Behind the Scenes goes for six minutes, 56 seconds and offers comments from writers/actors Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans, director Keenen Ivory Wayans, and actors Dave Sheridan, Carmen Electra, Shannon Elizabeth, Cheri Oteri, Lachlan Munro, Jon Abrahams, Regina Hall, and Anna Faris. “Scenes” looks at the challenges of the parody genre, story/character choices, and cast/performances. This is good for a promo piece, but it remains fairly superficial.

The disc opens with ads for National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and The Invisible. We also find a trailer for Scary Movie.

I can’t say that Scary Movie becomes the least funny and most grating comedy I’ve ever seen, but it stands in contention for that title. Virtually all 88 minutes of this clunker left me praying for a quick death. The Blu-ray offers mostly good audio along with minor supplements and terrible picture. This becomes a subpar release for a poor film.